From the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, Omni published dispatches from the world of science and some of the most iconic science fiction stories of the late twentieth century, including William Gibson’s “Johnny Mnemonic” (May 1981), Ted Chiang’s “Tower of Babylon” (November 1990), and Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat” (April 1991). The print magazine folded in 1995 — though an internet version lasted somewhat longer. Now, as of earlier this fall, the Internet Archive has a near-complete run of Omni, free for download or viewing online.

If you are “of a certain age”, you’ll remember Omni. It was kind of a precursor to Wired but much more out there.

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/his-divine-shadow His Shadow

Bought it religiously. Read it through high school.

http://www.facebook.com/andrew.ratza Andrew Vlad Ratza

What if I’m from Romania and I have no idea what Omni is?

http://www.yourmaclifeshow.com/ Shawn King

Then this story won’t have much relevance to you.

http://twitter.com/Derek_Ledbetter Derek Ledbetter

I wish the publisher would sell all of the issues collected together on DVD or some other electronic format, like the New Yorker or National Geographic. I’d buy it.

It’s fun to read the issues from the Internet Archive, but the image quality is very low.

http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

Omni was fun. Gave a great deal of slick-publishing legitimacy to writers who’d earned it decades before.